If you enjoy stories about dogs or about search and rescue, this is a book you must read. I warn you though - you may cry through large sections of it - but it will be worth it. The book traces the beginnings of the Search Dog Foundation from Wilma Melville's time helping after the Oklahoma City Bombing and her realization that many more SAR dogs were necessary. The author describes how the program came to use dogs from animal shelters, the training program, and matching the dogs with their human partners.

The text also describes how the teams worked in various disasters, including 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Readers will find details about what conditions were like, the lengths that dogs and handlers went through to find victims, and how the dogs also served as unofficial therapy dogs for rescue workers.

Between the tales of the difficulties some of the dogs had before they were chosen by the SDF, and then reading about the horrors rescuers had to endure to search the disaster sites, some of the passages were very grim. Not that this book is a downer, but it is accurate and some sad facts are inescapable. The overall benefits of the foundation and the work of the canine SAR teams are the silver lining and make persevering through the more heart-wrenching parts well worth the effort.

Hero Dogs was hard to put down. I’m a dog lover and trainer and reading the story of these rescued and rejected dogs that turned into disaster search partners was enlightening, exciting, and heart wrenching. Some of these dogs had such a rough start to their lives. It was wonderful reading how their training evolved along with partnering and learning how to be a search and rescue team.
The story is told from Wilma’s perspective and gives us the beginning of her partnership with her own dog, Murphy and the frustration she felt from other SAR handlers and SAR organizations. After working the Oklahoma City bombing, she ultimately vows to train 168 dog and handler teams for each victim. She decides to use rescue dogs for her program. The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, SDF, was then created.
I loved the stories of the different dogs and their individual personalities and quirks. The pairing of the dogs with their human partners was unique and very appropriate. Wilma doesn’t sugar coat the trials of training these dogs and handlers. She also doesn’t let us think that every dog was perfect for disaster search. Some didn’t make the cut, but ended up in a working environment that fit their specific skills. A promise she made at the beginning was that none of these dogs would ever see a shelter again even if they couldn’t become a part of the program. Along the way, she meets and becomes friends with many people that she freely acknowledges as being a part of the whole and not just one person’s goal. It took many people and dogs to get the SDF where it is today. The search and rescue community is definitely better for having her work so hard to have her dream become a reality. Disaster victims couldn’t want a better team on their side than the SDF dog and handler teams.
It was hard to put this book down. It flowed very easily from page to page. If you know nothing, or very little about search and rescue this book will be interesting. If you have knowledge of SAR, you’ll enjoy reading about the dogs, training and handlers. I enjoyed reading this and would highly recommend it. I received a free e-copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am a dog lover so this book was very enjoyable for me. I did shed tears and also laughed. This book was very informative. The parts about 9/11 were especially interesting and upsetting. I have ordered this book for the library and I am sure that fellow dog lovers will love the book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this arc.

What a wonderful tribute to the awesome work of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, human and canine. Unlike a lot of biographies, this book did not focus solely on one individual, but more a cast of characters with the founder, Wilma Melville as the starting point of the story of the SDF. Featured prominently in the cast of characters are the dogs themselves. Each dog was written so well, I felt like I knew them well enough to recognize one just at first sight. What I found most impressive in the book was the incredible will power, personal sacrifice, commitment, and tenacity of all characters (human and canine) in the face of complete disaster and overwhelming odds of success. Having witnessed the disasters from a safe distance on a television set, I was even at this late date crying over the 9-11 rescue efforts, the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina and others. Being able to almost smell and taste what it must have been like for these folks is due to the writing ability of Paul Lobo. The horrific descriptions were balanced out by the antics of the dogs, so I was able to laugh as well.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this arc. Thank you Wilma Melville and Paul Lobo and the entirety of the SDF for your passion.

Hero Dogs tells the story of the woman who founded the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF). She started the group after the Oklahoma City bombing, with the optimistic goal of training 168 search dog teams, one for every victim of the bombing. . One of the most impressive things about the dogs in this book is that they were mostly rescues—high energy animals surrendered to shelters, and in some cases abused. We learn about Melville’s teams—how they trained together, and how their skills were tested when deployed to New York after 9/11, New Orleans after Katrina, and Haiti after the devastating earthquake there.

I am an animal lover and have always loved books about animals in many forms; from Marguerite Henry’s horse stories and James Herriot’s books when I was a child, to books like Moby Dick (yes, I actually enjoyed it!) and H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. In addition I jumped wholeheartedly into the “my life with pets” genre that seemed to be so prevalent in the years after Marley and Me was released. I read and enjoyed many of those books as well, although after a while, they began to feel formulaic and less pleasant.

There was another spate of books that I began reading that told the stories of animals who had been involved in a variety of famous tragedies—animals that were rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fate of the dogs that were rescued after Michael Vick was arrested for participating in dog fighting. Again, I enjoyed these books, but there is a similarity to the stories of animals who are rescued from bad situations and rehabilitated by amazing people, and so there are many similar books that I simply skip.

I am not exactly sure why, in light of the reading history I describe above, I decided to try this particular book out, but I am glad I did. Although this is a story in the vein of the animals who were rescued and rehabilitated by amazing people stories, this one felt like a better read than many others I had read in the past. The story had an urgency and suspense that felt true, and the descriptions of the dogs working were evocative and almost poetic at times.

I am glad that I read this, and definitely recommend it to others.

I received an advanced reading copy from the publisher via NetGalley. Thanks!